When Josh Good made his season debut in last Sunday's SIHSL Tournament quarterfinals, the senior guard was eased into McKee/Staten Island Tech's rotation. For the most part, Good was a role player.

But with the Sea Gulls trailing by double digits and in danger of fading in the tourney championship game Saturday night, Josh Good the go-to player suddenly appeared.

And now, MSIT finds itself in a place it's never been before.

Good exploded for 15 of his game-high 20 points after halftime and the Sea Gulls turned up the defense a notch in the second half to register a 57-54 victory over St. Peter's in the SIHSL title game at Monsignor Farrell HS.

The SIHSL championship was MSIT's first in the tournament's 19-year history.

"I refused to lose (the tournament championship) two years in a row,'' said Tournament MVP Good, who was academically ineligible before seeing his first action in the SIHSL quarters. "It's (the program's) first tournament championship and I'm really glad to be a part of it.

"This is for guys like (former MSIT players) Atigi (Moore) and Pucky (Manley), who were great teachers to me, but never won a championship.''

"It's amazing,'' added MSIT coach Charlie Donohue. "I'm a guy that reads stats and knows the history of our league and it's been a real long time since our program has done anything special like this.

"We worked our (butts) off to get back here and I'm really proud to be a part of a team that put (our program) on the map. You can never take that away from us.''

St. Peter's, behind floor general Vernon Maddox, committed just three first-half turnovers and, after leading 12-9 after one perioid, staged a 12-2 run midway through the second period to build a 32-23 lead at intermission.

"St. Peter's was playing aggressive. They were moving the ball better than we were in the first half,'' said Hogan-Gary. "We knew we had to play better defense, crash the boards better and just play harder

"Fortunately, everything eventually came together.''

When Maddox buried a left-wing jumper 15 seconds into the second half, St. Peter's still possessed a world of momentum as its lead ballooned to 11 points (34-23).

But as if though an alarm went off, MSIT - specifically Good - suddenly came to life. It all started so innocently when Good, pulling up from behind the basket along the right baseline, buried a long trey when his attempt hit the rim, bounced high in the air and dropped in.

Cox and Hogan-Gary followed with back-to-back interior buckets to narrow the gap to four (34-30) and, after Peana hit from inside, Good and Cox sandwiched another Peana bucket with field goals to again cut the lead to four.

However, this time, Good followed it up by completing a 17-4 run that spanned 3:51 by draining back-to-back 3-pointers to give the Sea Gulls a 40-36 lead with 3:05 left.

"At the time, we needed someone to step up,'' said Good. "I wasn't forcing shots. I let my game come to me.

"I felt like I couldn't miss,'' the guard added. "They were playing off me, coach didn't mind if I had a shot, so I took them.

"We started Josh in the second half because scoring was something we needed,'' acknowledged Donohue, whose team committed just three second-half turnovers while burying each of their 10 free-throw attempts. "We know we have a special player in Josh. We know if he wasn't open, he pass the ball, because he's so unselfish.

"But he had the shots,'' added Donohue, noting his Gulls played with better urgency after halftime. "So he took them.''

With the game tied at 44 entering the final eight minutes, Good again responded, opening the fourth quarter scoring by draining another jumper from the left wing with 7:31 left. Although the score would remain close, the Sea Gulls wouldn't trailed again.

"We stayed with our game plan and we might have been a little out of sync offensively in the second half, but Good was hitting some tough shots,'' said SP coach Charlie Driscoll. "He hurt us, but it wasn't from a lack of effort. We were getting hands in his face. He just kept hitting them.''

A Michael Coughlin free throw narrowed MSIT's lead to a point, but Kareem Martin followed a right-wing trey with a foul-line jumper before Ryan Markoe capped a game-breaking 7-0 run with a pair of free throws to give the Sea Gulls their biggest lead (53-45) with just 3:17 to play.

But just when it appeared the Gulls were nearing the finish line, the Eagles staged one last run behind leading scorer Bock.

The senior canned a pair of baskets within a 33-second span to make it 53-49 with 2:22 left. And, after Peana hit one of two free throws, Bock hit a pair of freebies with 46 ticks remaining to make it a 53-52 game.

"I'm like, 'here we go again,'' said Donohue. "We know St. Peter's isn't going to give up. They're going to fight to the very end. But we had to find a way to hold on.''

MSIT did.

On the Gulls' ensuing possession, Good finally missed a shot with 21.2 seconds left, but the rebound caromed off an Eagle player and out of bounds.

After Good was fouled on the inbound, he sank two free throws to again make it a three-point lead with 19.7 seconds left.

The Eagles couldn't get off a game-tying trey on their next possession and had to settle of a Peana bucket off a rebound with just 2.5 ticks on the clock.

Markoe, however, drained both ends of a one-and-one a second later to ice MSIT's first SIHSL title since the 1984-85 season.

"The kids really responded (to adversity) all season long,'' said Donohue. "And fortunately, we found away to do it again (Saturday night).''

NOTES: In addition to Good, the all-tournament team consisted of MSIT's Hogan-Gary, St. Peter's Bock and Maddox, Port Richmond's Presnell Wright and Curtis' Kevin McIntosh.